So there is something I have learned lately about perks and equipment for warriortype characters, and that is that if you have all the important perks in armor and weapons(and smiing is recomended) you can actually use low-level items almost as effectively as high-end gear.
Example: My Crusader used a steel warhammer and steel plate armor, which neither are top of the line equipment, but I easily reached 570-ish AR and had a weapon damage of 90. The daedric warhammer get roughly 111 damage, and while the daedric armor gets much higher AR both reach the 80% damage reduction cap.

What I'm trying to say is that I love how your characters abilities are more important than the equipment.

Ya, I like that too. Whenever I break out of jail I can just pick up anything I can scrounge and lay waste to the guards.

As it should be.

I love how I threw one point into smithing and was able to make my Blade's Sword a VERY formidable weapon. And I haven't even enchanted it yet! Definitely fits my character's ninja aesthetic better than any other weapon I've found so far and boy does it get the job done!

Defnitely an improvement over TES III & IV.
At times it felt like you were playing the gear, not the character (especially in Oblivion where level-scaling really punished you if you decided you preferred using lower level gear).

Yep, you can use any weapon & armor you like.

Even more, I'm currently playing a khajit in daedric with gaunlets and medallion, enchanted for additional unarmed damage. Punchin' Ancient Dragons for fun on Expert, hell yeah. Seriously.

Yeah, that kinda annoyed me. You could use any armor as long as I enchanted it, but you would have a hard time with a lowerlevel weapon even with strong enchanting.

Wrong. Fortify Skill in Morrowind worked fine (Not to mention chameleon exploits). Oblivion - enchant items with shield and run around in anything you want. http://pix.playground.ru/download/gallery/276634/f790f76a4c1d299d8f4269f3a3267c64.jpg has more protection than full daedric plate.